


Burnt Bridges

by My_kokoro



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, But Steve reflects on his wrongs, Depression, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Steve bashing, Pansexual Tony Stark (headcanon), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, Team Nat, They talk, Tony does too, Unrequited Love, Wanda deserved better, discussion of winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_kokoro/pseuds/My_kokoro
Summary: During the Infinity Wars, the scattered Avengers once more stood together against the common threat of Thanos. Now, after the dust of the battle settles down, Iron Man retires. Steve hopes to make up with Tony before he leaves, and tries talking with him about their disagreement during CW, as well as what happened in Siberia.





	Burnt Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This has been sitting in my laptop for a while, and I'm very nervous about posting it. It's my first work in this fandom, and I haven't posted fanfiction for years because of my health. So I am very excited about finally finishing one of my projects and posting it here, but very nervous too! I hope you like it!  
> This is Post-CW, and also post-IW, assuming that Steve and Tony both lives. I also assume that Wanda and Vision die during the IW. Spider-man Homecoming and Black Panther are both canon too.  
> This is not meant to bash Steve for his actions in CW, but I do think that what he did was wrong, so this will address that as well as addressing some of Tony's issues. This is mainly an interpretation of the characters and their actions during CW. I also assume here that Steve did not let Tony alone with a disabled Iron Man suit in Siberia (thus putting him at risk of dying from hypothermia), but that he asked T'Challa to go back and check on him. So Tony was never left alone in Siberia.  
> I'll end this note by warning you that English isn't my first language, so if you spot some major mistakes or sentences that don't make sense, feel free to point them out. ;)

“Tony! Tony, wait!”

His former teammate looked frail and small without his Iron Man armor. Vulnerable. Steve jogged to catch him up, noticing the way Tony’s shoulders tensed.

“What do you want, Rogers?”

Voice deliberately neutral, just as it had been during the whole time they had fought together, on the same side for the first time in years. While the Infinity Wars had brought the Avengers back together for Earth’s survival, their gathering had been but a necessity -it hadn’t mended any of Steve and Tony’s burnt bridges-.

Steve had tried though, but there hadn’t been much time to talk things out. Tony had shaken everything off as if all was well -but it wasn’t. Trust had been broken, and Steve could see that Tony wasn’t allowing him to try and gain his trust back.

Steve had thought they would talk the whole Civil War fiasco out after everything had settled down, and again, he had been mistaken. Tony didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t even want to have to face him, and now…

Now Tony was retiring as Iron Man and leaving. For good.

“Tony…”

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to hold on to him, how to convince him to listen to him and hear him out. They couldn’t leave it at that. He couldn’t let Tony leave still thinking that Steve had treated him so poorly because of a lack of trust and friendship when it hadn’t been the case at all…

“Well?” snapped Tony, throwing him an annoyed glare, thus finally looking at him in the face.

“I’d like to talk to you,” murmured Steve, his throat tight. “Before you leave us.”

“Look, if you’re trying to get me to stay, don’t. I’m old and tired. I’m done with being Iron Man, it has nothing to do with leaving you all, though I can’t say I’m very sorry about that.”

“ _Please_ , Tony.”

God, why had a word as simple as a 'please' been so difficult to get out? Steve still needed to work on that. ‘Please’, ‘I’m sorry’…all those were words that since his awakening in the twentieth century, remained stuck in his throat, and it seemed that it was something Tony had had noticed as well, because hearing it right now made his dark eyes slightly widen with surprise.

“…Okay,” finally breathed Tony.

 

  
They walked together, away from the main buildings of the compound. They needed space, and they didn’t want to have anyone barging in a discussion that could very well end up in a screaming match -and if they did end up yelling at each other, well,  maybe that was long overdue and thus, they didn’t need someone stopping them. Steve knew Friday was still monitoring the place though, and could send help if ever they came to blows. Of course, Steve would never let himself hit Tony ever again -but he knew Tony didn’t trust him not to, and that he only agreed to come in a secluded place alone with Steve because he knew Friday could still watch them. Walking with Tony had used to feel calming and peaceful. They would fall in the same steps, and share dry humor. Even now, after their friendship had been torn apart, and as they were walking in a tense silence, their feet still went together at the same pace -a ghost of an intimacy that had died too soon, leaving regrets, longing, and secret what-ifs-.

They sat together on a bench. The white walls and wide glass panels of the buildings were blinding under the hard sun. Not a single cloud sailed in the bright blue sky. Not a single breeze shook the leaves of the trees towering in their back.

Steve was the one who broke the oppressive silence again;

“We need to talk about what happened with the Accords.”

“You mean the Civil War?”

“That’s… I don’t get why the media call it like that. A fight between a few individuals does not make it a ‘war’. I would know, I’ve been in one.”

Tony shrugged.

“They like being all dramatic.”

“And I don’t get why they call it ‘civil’ either. The Accords weren’t an national initiative, it was an international one.”

“Oh, really? Hearing you all talk all the time about Ross, I’d thought it was an USA-only thing. Thank you for clearing that up for me, Rogers.”

“Tony, please. I don’t want to fight.”

“What do you want, then? I’m not going to apologize. I was right about the Accords, and you weren’t. I’m not going to bulge on that. I’m tired of always being told I’m wrong, especially when I’m not.”

“Listen, Tony. I’m not asking you to apologize for your beliefs. And I don’t think either of us were right or wrong about the Accords. It took me time to see it, and I regret not having seen that earlier, but none of us were wrong about the Accords. You believed that we needed to be reminded of laws and authority, and that accountability needed to be taken more seriously. You were right. I was afraid of the restrictions such a system would put on us, afraid it would make us unable to help when we needed to, afraid that it would leave an opening to tyranny and abuse. I was right, and it’s exactly what happened with Ross. However… though I was right about my beliefs, I went the wrong way to make them heard. I should have listened to Natasha and worked with you. I should have made my voice heard to the UN instead of standing in the way stubbornly with nothing else to say than ‘no, you move’. I regret that. I know now I did wrong.”

“Damn right you did,” said Tony in a low voice, not looking at him, when Steve had to stop to breathe.

“But you did, too,” insisted Steve, and seeing how Tony bristled, he added quickly; “And I’m not saying this to blame you. I’m saying this because I don’t understand your actions, just the same you probably don’t understand mine. And that’s…that’s what I’d like to talk over with you.”

“Huh, so what did I do so wrongly in your fuckin’ book?” spat out Tony, venomously.

Steve struggled to keep his voice calm and unwavering. Getting angry, or on the contrary desperate, would only push Tony further in his resentment.

“For one, I don’t understand why we didn’t learn about the Accords until Ross came at us and gave us three days to sign them. The Accords are not something that can be made overday. I can’t believe you wouldn’t have known about them when they were in the making. Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Tony deflating, his shoulders slumping, a deep sigh leaving him.

“That was my mistake,” Tony said quietly. “I tried shielding the team from stressful stuff, and it went to bite me right back in the ass.”

“What do you mean, ‘shielding us from stressful stuff’?”

“After Ultron… well, I needed time for myself, to deal with… everything. Barton retired, too, and Bruce had just…vanished. You and Nat were putting up a new team. Pepper and I were trying to be in a serious relationship. So I let the Iron Man job to War Machine, and you and I divided the leadership, remember? You were to lead the team, train it, go on missions, all the Avenging stuff, while I dealt with government goons, fund raising, media, damage control, and charity. Well, what I didn’t expect, was the amount of guilt and stress. We were receiving so much hate, you have no idea. Some of us were still fragile, still in grief, still mourning…”

Steve knew he was talking about Wanda, but he couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t talking about him, too, and maybe even Natasha herself, who had been very affected by Banner’s disappearance.

“So I decided to shield you all from that. I made sure none of that would reach you. I dealt with it on my own. Got your mail sorted before you got it. Dealt with the media alone. Listened to the victims alone. Dealt with the money issues alone. All of that so you could have some peace of mind and do your work with a good heart. It worked for a while, didn’t it? And then the Accords came, and I did something stupid. I shielded you from them the same way I did with the rest. I thought I would have time to introduce them to you in a smooth way. Also, I thought I could put our legal team on it, and get a say in their making without having to sign them first. But then, Lagos happened, and so the UN pushed the unfinished Accords forward, Ross fell on us like a hawk, and we got three days to sign. So yeah… it was my mistake. My guilt pushed me to take everything bad on my own, to shield you from it, and it was a bad move. You know the rest. I thought that we needed to sign to make sure we could still have a say in the Accords. You thought you could just say ‘no’ to a hundred countries.”

Steve nodded. He wouldn’t deny it. He had to face the fact that he, Captain America, had acted like the bullies he had sworn to fight, and he had to make sure he would never do so again.

“What about…” he started, hesitant. Talking about _her_ … was painful. It was a wound that would never heal, he knew that, and he knew it was the same for Tony. But he needed to ask. “How about Wanda? Why would you treat her like a criminal like that, putting her on house arrest ? You knew Lagos was an accident.”

Tony gave out a long suffering sigh.

“Are you seriously asking me that? Rogers, I didn’t put her on house arrest because I thought she was a criminal. I didn’t do this to punish her. I did this because taking responsibility of our actions means more than shrugging it off and say ‘sorry, that was an accident’. Taking responsibility of our actions means accepting to step down when we do wrong, and have our actions investigated. And that’s not only for the victims, for the people who watch us. That’s also for us. Wanda had to step down from Avengers business to reflect on her actions, but also to take time for herself so as to heal from the guilt she felt. What’s more… I know I didn’t let the hate mail get to any of you, but you couldn’t have ignored the hate she was receiving. She was in a delicate situation, she wasn’t even an American citizen, anything could have been used against her to have her evicted. You’re the one who got her evicted, in the end, with your stupid stunt. I confined her to the Compound for her own security, mostly. Because there were lots of trigger-happy men out there, who were eager to be the one to put a bullet through the skull of the foreign witch.”

“It wouldn’t have come to this,” bristled Steve.

“Really? Are you so sure?” sneered Tony.

Steve lowered his eyes to the ground. Now that Tony had brought this to his attention, he could see it. It was hard not to, when news of regular white guys shooting kids in school, or lobbies fighting against gun regulation, regularly showed up on the TV.

“Poor Wanda, we failed her,” murmured Tony, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Steve tried to shook the images of her out of his head. He didn’t manage to. His throat constricting, he managed to parrot his therapist;

“It’s not our fault, what happened to her, to Vision…”

“Isn’t it?”

“You know it isn’t. Thanos…”

“Rogers, do you really think we have treated Wanda right? Do you really think that Vision and her would have ended like that if we hadn’t screwed up?”

“We didn’t screw up! Fighting over the Accords didn’t-”

“I’m not talking about the Accords,” Tony interrupted him. “If anything, all the Accords did was highlight how much we had failed her in the first place. Since then, I already knew it wouldn’t end well for her.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Look. Wanda and her brother were very young and traumatized when they enrolled with Strucker. That’s why we decided to give them a chance, didn’t we? And then the kid died. So we took in Wanda, and gave her a new home, a new life with the Avengers. I stepped back. For personal reasons, sure, but not only. I wanted to give her space, because her trauma was linked to me, whether it was the bomb that took her family, or Ultron himself. I thought naively that she would be taken cared of. I didn’t really check on her because… well, having my mind played with wasn’t something I was recovering well from.”

“I’m so sorry it took us so much time to even learn about that,” said Steve. He wanted to reach for him, squeeze his arm, his hand, anything. He closed his fist, fighting down that urge that he knew wouldn’t be well received by Tony. “I wish you had told us.”

“It’s doesn’t matter much, now,” shrugged Tony.

Steve thought it did matter very much. There was so much they had blamed Tony of. Ultron was one of those things, and it had taken far too long to learn that Ultron wasn’t only Tony’s creation - that it was also Wanda’s, and Banner’s-.

“Wanda was still traumatized, she was grieving, and she didn’t fully control her power yet. She needed help. She needed training. I thought you would’ve gotten her a therapist and a teacher. But then Lagos happened, and I realized you had put in the field a young woman who didn’t have a proper hold on her powers yet. Then the house arrest happened, Leipniz happened, and as I remembered Vision laying in the debris of the Compounds, cars raining down on me, I realized how full of hate she still was. She had never healed from her trauma. We had merely pushed her trauma under the rug and ignored it, treating her like a child, never giving her the help she needed. We _failed_ her, Cap. It’s no wonder her mind snapped after what happened to Vision. It’s no wonder we lost them both.”

Steve was blinking hard, trying to force back the tears from his eyes. That was also something he had realized, after he had started to get professional help for his own issues. He wondered if Sam had even known about Wanda’s past, back then when he had joined the Avengers right after Ultron. Wanda had joined much too soon. She had been given no time off to grieve nor heal. No one had discussed her past, nor her trauma. No one had talked about each other’s past. Sam was always there, proposing his help, trying to make them talk after a mission -and they did talk, a little. But they were all carrying deep traumas, and none of them had treated them seriously. God, one of the reasons Steve had jumped on the house arrest issue as an excuse to reject Tony’s olive branch was that he hadn’t wanted Bucky to go in a psychiatric facility. Steve, back then, had firmly believed that those were for ‘crazy people’, and that Bucky didn’t deserve to be locked up in there.

“You tried to kill Bucky.”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. It had escaped his lips without notice, maybe because he was desperate to think of something else than Wanda, or maybe also because that was really something he couldn’t get over.

Silence fell. For a moment, the both of them were so quiet, even down to their breathing, that the other sounds surrounding them seemed to grow louder -the wind, the birds’ chirping, the far-away purr of cars, even the rays of the sun seemed to buzz-. Then;

“Maybe.”

“Maybe,” repeated Steve, blankly.

Another silence.

“There is…” started again Tony, slowly. “There are only two times I ever, consciously, wanted to kill someone. The first time was in Afghanistan. I… I was the Merchant of Death, you know, but technically, I hadn’t killed anyone. Not with my bare hands. I came back from Afghanistan as Iron Man. But I also came back as a murderer. I burnt to the ground the place I was kept in, and I don’t regret it.”

For all that Tony loves to boast and talk miles about his inventions, he’s never been one to talk about his deeper feelings. Steve can sense there is so much more Tony is holding back about Afghanistan, can see it in the tension in his shoulders, the slight tremble of his lips, his far-away look, the tap-tap-tap of his fingers against his chest. Steve wishes Tony could confide in him, but he knows this, this conversation they have, is already a gift, that Tony is never that chatty. A few years ago, Steve heard Bruce complain that Tony had talked his ears off about his problems and his disastrous run with the Mandarin. He remembers feeling angry and jealous, wishing that Tony would have chosen to trust him instead, and thinking that he would have treated Tony’s confidences better.

Tony breathes in, shakily, and goes on.

“The second time, was when I fought the Mandarin. I killed defending my life, so it’s not really that I wanted to kill, more like I had no choice. And then Pepper fell. I thought she had died. I wanted to kill him, I tried to. In the end, Pepper’s the one who managed to. She became a murderer because of me.”

Another shaky breath.

“Now, Barnes… Would I have killed him if you hadn’t stopped me? Most probably.”

Steve couldn’t look at him. His fists were so tightly closed he could feel his nails digging into his flesh.

“I didn’t think of him as a human being, or even a living being,” said Tony, his voice flat. “I thought of him as a tool. As a weapon. As the _thing_ that killed my mom. I thought of him as your toy. I wanted to break it. I wanted to hit it, and hit, and hit. I wanted to beat it into a bloody pulp. And… it was even worse when you admitted knowing. I didn’t only want to hurt Barnes, I wanted to hurt you, too. Since you loved him so much that you’d trample over me without any qualms, I wanted to take him from you. So… did I try to kill Barnes? No, not really. I didn’t think nor want to kill him. But I did want to break him. I did think of him as a _thing_ I wanted to break and take from you. Would he have died if I had done so, if I had beaten him up like I wanted to? Yes, probably. Certainly? I don’t know. I’m not proud of it. I saw red and couldn’t stop. Thinking of my mom. Seeing how you lied for him. I saw red.”

His voice wavered and lowered.

“I’m glad you stopped me… even though I wish you had done so in another way. Even though I can’t help but think that it’s all your fault in the first place, and I know I wouldn’t have reacted like that if only… if only… If only you had destroyed that fuckin’ screen, and tape, and stopped me from watching it, and promised me to tell me after we put the bad guy’s in jail… If only you had told me beforehand, before any of this shit show. If only you had just fuckin’ _trusted_ me as _I_ trusted you. I don’t, by the way. I don’t trust you anymore. Won’t ever.”

There was nothing Steve could say to make this better, and so he forced his guilt away and trailed back to the beginning of their conversation, waiting a little before replying;

“Thank you, Tony.”

Tony started, and glanced towards him; as their eyes met, he quickly looked away. Steve sighed.

“Thank you for explaining this to me. I really did not understand what happened with you back then. Especially during the Accords thing.”

He could fill in the rest easily without needing to ask him. The guilt, the stress, the break-up with Pepper, the migraine from the use of the BARF machine - all that explained Tony’s aggressive and short-tempered behavior from back then, so different from his usual cocky-upbeat-genius one Steve had grown so fond of-.

“Yeah? It’s still mainly your fault. I did a mistake in trying to keep you all away from the shit storm, but it doesn’t excuse you from having deliberately ignored politics and the real world.”

“I didn’t-”

“Yes, yes you did. I know you, Cap. Whenever there’s something you don’t like on the TV, you turn it off.” Steve winced, for he remembered very well doing so when Wanda was watching the news in the aftermath of Lagos. Tony kept going; “So of course you’d never know about what people thought about us, or what politics were going on. You didn’t like it? You ignored it. You did the same with the Accords. And okay, you’re only human, so you can make mistakes. But you dragged the whole team down with you, just because you were so very content in your imaginary world. Must have been a shock, to realize that none of your wonderland could work without financial and legal support, huh?”

The emotions bordering on tears, as well as the fleeting peace had floated away, and now Tony was swept again in his ocean of anger and hurt. It was jarring to see how strongly Tony still felt about all this, even years after. Steve closed his fist again, once more physically stopping himself from reaching for him and putting a comforting hand on his arm. He knew Tony would just swat him away. Tony’s body was trembling, and it was visible he was stopping himself from jumping up and pacing around.

“Tell me why?!” Tony spat, suddenly. “Explain yourself, Rogers. I explained. Your turn. I‘ll never forgive you, but I fuckin’ deserve to know _why_.”

“I’ll explain,” said Steve, gently. “That’s why I wanted to have a talk with you.”

He took a deep breath, and heard Tony do the same, probably trying to reign his anger in.

“I… wasn’t in a good place,” finally admitted Steve. “Ever since I woke up in this century, I… something inside me had died. I had… I felt as if something was missing. As if there was no fire in my heart anymore, as if I was still frozen in the ice.”

“As if you were a car without fuel, only you had no idea where or how to get your fuel,” added Tony softly.

He wasn’t mocking him. He was… Steve swallowed. There was no way Tony could understand exactly what he was saying without… He cut short the thought. He didn’t want to think that maybe Tony would know firsthand what Steve was going through, because he had been there, too.

“I’ve got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and survival guilt,” he blurted out. “I’m currently seeing someone about that. They think I have depression too, but they’re not sure because of the serum. Apparently, the medicine doesn’t work on me, also because of the serum, but I’m talking things out with a therapist, so… I’m doing better.”

“Medication doesn’t always work, it’s different for everybody, even without serum,” said quietly Tony. “But talking things out can help, if only a little… I used to hope you were doing that with Wilson, since it was kinda his job. And you wouldn’t talk to me, so…”

“I… I didn’t talk to Sam. Actually, I even did a pretty good job at hiding to him how unwell I was. God, I myself couldn’t see how unwell I was until…well, until Bucky went back into cryo and I realized I had ripped apart our family. Until I had lost you. Until I had lost everything that still kept me going. I felt as if I were going crazy. Then… I asked Sam for help.”

He swallowed. He couldn’t look at Tony anymore.

“I had mental illnesses all that time. Survivor guilt. PTSD. Depression. I didn’t only lie to others, I lied to myself all the time. That was the only way I could keep myself steady. But whenever Bucky came in… that fragile equilibrium would collapse, and I’d found myself chasing after him, as if he could somehow fix everything. That was unfair to him, putting my whole sanity and happiness on his shoulders… The whole Accords fiasco was… well, I admit that you’re right. I probably didn’t keep up with the news. I didn’t want to deal with politics, I didn’t care about them. I thought that because I hated bullies, I couldn’t do wrong by the people, that I’d always protect the little one, and I didn’t realize I was actually acting like a bully myself by refusing to hear them out. The whole ‘plant yourself like a tree and say: no, you move’…those were words from Peggy. But I shouldn’t have used them as a guideline. I used them for myself, a, as Sam says, a ‘super-powered white man’, when they were words from a woman fighting in a time where sexism and racism were the norm, and fascism was taking over Europe. Being given no rights nor recognition, Peggy had no choice but to refuse to bulge and to impose her stance. I, on the other hand… I already was respected and had the right to voice my stance. But instead of voicing it, I tried to impose it like a dictator would, while abusing the faith of those who followed me and pushing away those who didn’t. I have no excuse. I know why I did it… I was just not thinking clearly at that time. There was a constant fog in my mind. I was desperate, I wanted the fire back in my heart… But everything just kept throwing punches at me. Bucky, Hydra, Ultron, the Accords… And then Peggy died, it hurt me so much, and I got so afraid that Bucky would follow that I just… I think I snapped. To be honest, Tony, I don’t remember much about the whole thing, I was so full of fear and loss! I probably acted just like a machine… I was out of control. I barely remember it. I don’t remember thinking. I just remember being hurt and so, so scared. I wanted Bucky safe, and it was as if the whole world was trying to rip him off my life. Again.”

Steve breathed in, feeling himself shake slightly. He gulped down the ugly sobs that were gathering in his throat. He still felt Peggy’s loss keenly, and he hated thinking back to the avalanche of fear that had taken hold of him during the whole Civil War debacle, to the point he had stopped thinking of Tony, Natasha, Vision and Rhodey as teammates, but as the enemy.

A few beats.

Then.

“That’s it?” barked Tony.

His aggressive voice made Steve jump and look up at him. Tony stood up in a fury and turned to face him, cold anger taking over him once again, his dark eyes blazing.

“That’s your excuse? Really? That’s all? ‘I was depressed, boohoo, I didn’t mean it’? _Seriously_? Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” snapped Tony, his voice a ugly sneer.

“Tony, I couldn’t help it! You have no idea-”

“Fuck you! You think I have no idea? You think you’re the only precious snowflake on this Earth who’s got depression? Fuck you, Rogers! I got depression when I was twenty-one, asshole, and all thanks to your best pals Howard and fuckin’ BUCKY! I was studying aboard, because I had already graduated from MIT, at seventeen, you know, that’s so sane for a kid, and then your fuckin’ boyfriend came along and offed my mom, and dad, and I was left alone at the head of Stark Industries, with dear Obie as some kind of regent, and we all know how much Obie really loved me! I was _twenty-one_ , Steve! The only real friend I had was Rhodey, and he had enrolled already ! Your depression sucked? Poor you! Newsflash, mine sucked too! I got drunk all the time, did drugs, tried to kill myself by doing the most reckless things, slept around without protection, tried again to kill myself when a sex tape of me got leaked, went to rehab, and wow, was all that fun! The only reason I’m still here now, is because Jarvis, the human Jarvis, my old butler, took care of me, and Rhodey even managed to take time off for me, too ! They got me treated for depression, the medication had horrible side-effects on me and I had to go through a handful of therapists, but I eventually got better. And yeah, back then when I was sick I made a lot of stupid decisions, I acted like an ass and I still can’t understand how Jarvis and Rhodey managed to bear with me and went as far as fuckin’ saving me, but I can tell you one thing… I would’ve never, _ever_ , used my shit as an excuse to ghost the people around me. And I would’ve never, _ever_ , have lied to anyone the way you did to me, nor would I have fuckin’ hit them in the face repetitively with a fuckin’ shield!”

His voice had raised, loud, on the verge of a scream. Tony took hold of his head with his two hands and breathed in, deeply, almost-shivers running through his hunched shoulders. Finally, he gasped out, calmer;

“Sorry. I shouldn’t… I know it’s different for everybody, and it’s nobody’s fault. I… I understand, Steve. Really, I do… And… I knew you weren’t well the instant I realized you never answered ‘yes’ to  simple questions like ‘are you okay?’, ‘will you be alright?’. Shrugging it off. Saying you’re home. Always getting around the question. I knew you weren’t well, I just… I didn’t think it was _that_ bad, and I thought you were doing better, and I thought Wilson would take care of you… it was supposed to be what he did, taking care of vets with PTSD. And well, I had a lot of shit on my own plate, so I thought…”

“It’s okay, Tony,” Steve assured him, and hesitantly reached for his hand, holding it preciously. Tony jerked up, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment, Steve not daring to move anymore.

Tony let him hold his hand, didn’t take it away. It was maybe the first time, since Siberia, that he let Steve touch him out of the Iron Man armor. Eventually, he tore his eyes off Steve’s, and lowered his head, staring at their linked hands.

“I understand,” he said again, his voice raw. “I understand when you say you were unwell and that you spiraled out of control. I even understand why you didn’t tell me about… about, you know... even if I wish you had told me, I understand how time stretches and blends into an unstoppable spinning top when your mind isn’t okay. And then… you think you have time, but before you realize it, it’s been months, it’s been years, and nothing’s changed, you’re still stuck in the mud trying to drag yourself out to sanity. So yeah, I wish you had told me, but I understand why you didn’t… What I don’t understand… what I really _don’t_ understand, is why you hit me with so much hatred?!”

“Tony, Tony, I didn’t… You know I fought you back because I couldn’t let you kill Bucky! I’ve never hated you. And I’m so sorry I had to disable the main reactor from the suit, knowing that it used to be life support for you, but I really had no other choice.”

“I’m not angry about the arc reactor thing,” hissed Tony, narrowing his oh so expressive eyes -they were shimmering, just like back then, in Siberia, when Tony had seemed about to cry before he had given into blind anger-. “It sucked and I got nightmares from that, but I understand why you did it. I just don’t understand _why_ you fuckin’ hit me _in the face_! Repetitively! You could have killed me, Steve! It’s the weakest piece of my armor, and human brains are so fragile! I could have had lasting damage, serious sequels! Don’t you know!? You go to the face when you hate someone. You go to the face when you wanna hurt or do lasting damage. You go to the face when you wanna off someone! So why the Hell did you do that if you don’t hate me?!”

He wrenched his hand out of Steve’s gentle hold. His whole body was taunt as a string, bursting with rage, his teeth gnashing as he gritted them, his deep eyes burning with hurt.

And Steve had no answer. No excuse.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice wavering. “I don’t… I barely remember it. I got desperate because nothing I did was working. You wouldn’t listen to me, I tried to have Bucky get out so as to calm you down but it didn’t work, I tried to disable your bootjets and failed, and in the end you started beating Bucky into a pulp, you kept kicking his face and there was so much blood and all, that I got so scared you would kill him, I just had to stop you. I don’t know if I lost control or if my thinking got skewed. I think I remember calculating that if I tried hitting the arc reactor, you’d cover it with your arms, and I didn’t wanna break them, so I went for a diversion. It seems so absurd, now. Why would I think it was better to hit your face and scare you to death rather than hurt your arms? Maybe… maybe I needed to see your face. I don’t know, Tony… I’m so sorry.”

Tony stepped back, schooling his snarling face into one of his impassive masks.

“Well. We had a very edifying talk. Thank you. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go.”  
“I mind,” blurted out Steve, internally cursing himself for how insensitive that came out. However, Tony fell silent and scrunched up his nose, but didn’t get angry. He waited for him to go on.

“I… I know I have been a terrible friend to you,” said Steve, carefully. “And I’m so sorry. But I really do care about you. I hope… I had hoped now that everything had settled down, you would… maybe, you could let me make up for that. Let me show you I care. Maybe… maybe we could try being friends again?”

“That’s cute, Rogers, but I’m retiring, and before you say anything, I really am retiring because I am not getting any younger, and I’m just really, really worn out, and so, no, I don’t think I’ll be much around here to play bestie with you.”

“You could visit? The compound’s still yours. Please promise me you’ll visit.”

And then again, Tony’s face morphed into an enraged one, and he spat out, voice icy cold and full of venom;

“Really? You want me to visit the place where my mom’s murderer now lives?”

Steve felt like he had gotten punched in the chest.

“But you… you know it wasn’t Bucky’s fault! You said so yourself! You even fought alongside Bucky! You… you even helped gathering evidence of his brainwashing for his trial! I don’t understand… Tony?”

“I can’t believe all of you!” cried out Tony, throwing his hands up. “Of course I helped! I know Barnes’ a nice fellow, I know it’s not his fault, and I know he was brainwashed and had no freewill! Yes, I know he was a victim, so of course I was gonna help! But do you think that changes everything? Do you think I can magically forget what happened? I _know_ it’s not Barnes’ fault in my mind, Steve, I really _know_ … but knowing it with your mind is not the same than knowing it with your heart, okay? I never got over the death of my mom in the first place, how the Hell do you want me to get over the fact she got murdered? And now, thanks to your little lie, I’ve even _seen_ it with my own two eyes! I’ve _seen_ Barnes doing it! No… no, Steve, I _can’t_. I fuckin’ _can’t_! This isn’t a fairy tale. This is real life! I can’t make buddy-buddy with Barnes, I _can’t_ and you have absolutely _no right_ to ask me to even _face_ him! That’s _wrong_ of you, how can you not get it? It’s _wrong_ to wanna force me to get along with him, or even just make me have to bear with his presence!”

“I’m sorry Tony, but… But I know you two! You would get along so well! I can promise you… if you tried, if you’d just _try_ and get along with him, you’d see you could be great friends! And… it would help you two, I’m sure it would help you!”

“We could be friends, yeah. In some alternate reality where he didn’t brutally murder my mom, we could. Please, please _stop_ , Steve, _please_! I know you mean well, but… do you have any idea what I go through every time I see him? I can’t. I _can’t_. You can’t ask that from me, it’s not fair, and it’s _wrong_.”

Steve stopped, realizing for the first time how severe was the grief Tony was holding in, and realizing how naive he had been to think that Tony acknowledging Bucky as a victim of Hydra as well as the tool of the murder rather than the murderer himself, that Tony acknowledging that would fix his pain. Somehow, Steve still believed in great tragedies and romances, stories like the one of El Cid, who killed doña Jimena’s father, and still got to get happily married to her. Either Jimena actually hadn’t loved her father at all, or the whole story was bullshit, realized Steve, because there was no way you could still love someone that much after they killed your beloved family. Forgiving was one thing, but loving?

Tony had never made his peace with his mother’s departure, not even after decades. Learning that she didn’t die on impact, but instead was slowly strangled to death in cold blood, while she was in fear and calling out her already murdered husband, was something that had taken hold of both lips of the wound, and pulled, ripping, ripping, ripping, until the wound had widened so much that it had swallowed him whole, making sure Tony would never heal, never stop mourning.

Thinking one second that Tony would accept Bucky in his life was _disgusting_. Steve had been selfishly indulging in the sick fantasy of having Bucky and Tony get along, and that… that was unacceptable. Ashamed of himself, Steve nodded;

“I’m sorry, Tony. I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

Tony turned over, showing his back to him, and started walking away. However, he only made it a few steps before he stopped, saying in a voice so low that it took Steve’s enhanced hearing to catch it;

“Whenever I see him, I see her. Every time. It’s been years since Siberia. I’ve seen him lots of times now. But, every time I do, I see her. _I see her_. I can’t. I _can’t_ do this, Steve. I’m not coming back here. I’m not facing him _ever_ again if I can help it.”

“Okay,” said Steve, quietly. “But, can I visit? May I visit you?”

Tony shrugged.

“I’d say ‘sure’, but, honestly, I’d rather you leave me alone for a while. Good-bye, Steve. Take care of yourself.”

“Take care of yourself, too,” said Steve, watching him walk away. Tony’s back looked straighter than before. He was a survivor, and even in tatters he would keep going, with that immense strength of will that Steve had admired in him ever since he had seen Iron Man carrying the nuke into that dark, deathly wormhole.

 

  
There was a sharp pain in Steve’s chest, and there were so many words he had wanted to say that he never got to, and that, he knew now, would only have hurt Tony if he had let them out.  
Being mentally unwell wasn’t the only reason why he had pushed Tony away, back then during Civil War, but also before then. Steve’s behavior and mistrust towards Tony during the whole Ultron affair had partly come from something else brewing in his heart. He had first intended to tell Tony, because the thought that Tony believed Steve hated him was unbearable.

Steve cared for him. He cared for him too much, and that was what had scared him. For a long time, before the war, Steve had thought that his appreciation of the male body was only one of an artist, and maybe, just maybe, envy from a shrimp who wished to be bigger. He didn’t think that it was more, and he never thought himself to be what people disgustedly called ‘a fag’, because he was attracted to women. Then the war came, he became the big and strong Captain America, and thus he had nothing to envy to anyone anymore. By then, he had already fallen in love with Peggy, and was blind to anyone else.

However, it turned out it had been more that the appreciation of an artist. The moment Steve had met Tony Stark, he had felt a pull towards him, and that pull had never left. Hence he got frustrated. He refused to think of it as attraction for a while, and when he had finally recognized it as such, he had been furious and disgusted, and had blamed Tony for it. Surely, it was the playboy’s fault -forget that Tony was at the time in a steady relationship with Pepper, and had never been seen with a man before, it had to be him that had corrupted Steve-!

It had taken time for Steve to integrate that homosexuality wasn’t something wrong anymore. So, it took him time to make peace with himself and admit that he was bisexual -that being attracted to Tony wasn’t an aberration, nor was it tainting the love he held for Peggy. That all the tension and constant disappointment he had felt around Tony had merely been attraction, sexual frustration, and want for more than friendship.

He had wanted to tell him. He had wanted to tell Tony that he liked him, liked him too much, and had simply been pulling his pigtails.

But when pulling one’s pigtails consisted in blaming them, trusting a former enemy over them, keeping the truth from them about the death of their parents for years, refusing to listen to them and to compromise just because, and bashing their face with the shield their father made, well…  
He couldn’t do that to Tony.

For Tony, who had been used by so many people, who had been left again and again, whose godfather had tried to kill him, whose longtime girlfriend had almost given up on them, whose teammates had stabbed in the back… those words would only hurt him further.  
‘I hurt you so much because I liked you’, then, would only morph itself into a monstrous ‘You don’t deserve to be loved.’

 

  
Steve looked up with an unsteady, unhappy wry laugh. The sky was still all-blue, no clouds in the horizon, and the sun blazing. It was a beautiful and warm day. Sitting on his bench, under the smooth shade of the trees, should have felt peaceful and nice.

But Steve felt like breaking, and found himself wondering why the weather wasn’t pouring out like his heart was, why the sky and the heavens were mocking his pain by being all gorgeous and serene.

This was real life indeed. A bright sun, just like in Wakanda, and all could Steve do, just like back there, was grieve his friendship with Tony, and grieve his unrequited love that would forever remain a dirty secret to carry to his tomb.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll love to hear your opinion and feelings about this, but please remain civil. No flames please!  
> I'll also add that there is one sentence in this work that is not of my invention, but something very real I heard from one of my loved ones, and that deeply marked me: "Whenever I see him, I see her. Every time. It’s been years since [Siberia]. I’ve seen him lots of times now. But, every time I do, I see her. I see her."


End file.
